An
op-ed in the Washington Post today warned that electronic voting machines may not be ready for prime time this November. The op-ed, written by former Republican governor Dick Thorburgh of Pennsylvania and former Democratic governor Richard Celeste of Ohio, states that:
...we believe it will be essential this year that jurisdictions have backup and contingency plans that anticipate a wide range of possible failures in their electronic voting systems, including those that occur in the middle of the voting process on Election Day (or days).
As Thorburgh and Celeste point out, this year's election is likely to be a contentious one. Even Adam Duritz is telling people to vote (incredible concert on Saturday at Nissan Pavilion). The bottom line is that democracy only works if election results are credible. The op-ed offers a few solutions:
Jurisdictions need to come up with contingency plans for such November problems, if they haven't done so already. One possible example: Make preparations to fall back to paper ballots if necessary. ... applicable backup technologies such as paper trails, which provide an independent, permanent record of activity on a voting machine, might already be in place.
Here's hoping that the states are listening. And Congress, too -- H.R. 550 is set to go in front of the House Administration committee this September.
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